In a major civil rights violation of US civil rights, the FBI has teamed up with other agencies to gather information on Muslim businesses worldwide by raiding the corporate offices of Infocom Corporation, which provides website services to 500 companies worldwide. While the pretext was to investigate supposed connections of Infocom with the Holy Land Foundation (itself a target of unconstitutional FBI harassment), the obvious purpose of this particular unconstitutional raid is to bully contractors into withdrawing from and/or avoiding new business transactions with Muslim computer service providers. It is NO accident that this is happening while computer services in the zionazi entity are going belly-up. The Bush regime is working hard to protect the financial interests of the collapsing zionazi entity, and this is their latest effort.

Members of the FTMecca received similar statements via email. If one excises the conspiracy theories about hidden plots to cripple Muslim businessmen in the name of Zionism, the incident is true. The Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down InfoCom for two days to execute a search warrant as part of an ongoing investigation of a ring of Hamas-sympathizing organizations in Texas. They've frozen some of InfoCom's assets, and taken away for at least six months its export priveleges.

Although for most, this is probably the first time ever hearing about Infocom, the FTMecca wanted to take this opportunity to remind readers about some of InfoCom's past activities, as we've had the displeasure of coming across them once before (though, happily their attempt to destroy this site failed). While the Federal Government may indeed be bullying the poor innocent Muslims, we should not forget how at least one of InfoCom's employees (fedup AKA John Janney) et al. had vitriolically agitated against periodicals in the past, such as the Dallas Morning News, for merely reporting on such things as the admission that an allied organization, The Holy Land Foundation, was providing funding for the families of "martyrs." (There's a much longer story, as the trouble started years ago, in the mid 90s when the paper published articles by Steve McGonigle and others who wrote extensively on the paper trail between InfoCom, the Holy Land Foundation and Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzook. The parties at InfoCom and the HLF could not openly admit such connections, as that would expose them to criminal charges under the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act. But of course, there are no such connections, hardy har har; the 80 federal agents bursted into InfoCom's offices on a lark :-)

In a news conference called by these organizations outside the InfoCom offices, their alignment with Hamas is transparent. They merely seek to have the Israelis cast as the terrorists, and the Islamic resistance portrayed as heroes. The irony is that anti-democratic elements like Capt'n Kook call for the presumption of innocence for InfoCom, and yet have no problem presuming the FBI's guilt. Notwithstanding that nothing requires the court of public opinion to presume innocence (OJ is guilty whatever the courts decided), the protestations are all formulaic. Although we have no idea if Capt'n Kook is a member of any of the organizations, his rhetoric is the classic M.O. formulated by obstensive "Muslim Civil Rights" organizations -- pretend you're a victim, tell off the meanies that don't acknowledge your victimhood, and clothe your ideology in the sacrosanct terms of American democracy. Get naive, moderate Muslims to aid your cause by framing any criticism of the Islamist ideology and ideologues as evidence of Islamophobia. This is, of course, the much more mild side of attack; there are other, more sinsiter forms of pressure that such characters impose on their perceived enemies.

It should be noted that the FTMecca is not new to the tactics of bullies that come from the ranks of the cyber-mujahideen. This site was originally with Xoom.com, but was taken down after a certain Muslim (from Texas!) complained that the page's content caused him to suffer a bruised deen. (Incidentally, all was not lost, as it led us to think up a new invention: the ten-gallon Cowboy Kufi -- we'd market it under the tradename "Wild Westoxification" towards the no-good, camel-rustling, six-kuffar-shooting Texan demographic!).

From there we moved the site to freespeech.org, but it was TOSed after a certain group had their lawyers flex their muscles before the space provider. This group is related to the story but will remain anonymous for the simple fact that we have determined by the way they pursue their opponents that they're pretty scary. In short, we ourselves, to a small degree, are submitting to these bullies.

Since then we have found a home with Yahoo-Geocities, and have been witness to many attempts at toppling the site. One Arabic discussion forum tried to organize an email writing campaign to Yahoo. When the company replied that the FTMecca did not violate their TOS, some of the Muttaqeen speculated that Yahoo was owned by the Jews (no doubt verified by adding a 'd' to 'Yahoo'). Recently, another Arabic Site, dedicated to the hacking and crashing of Israeli sites (fitting our classification of cyber-mujahideen) includes the FTMecca on its list of mawaaqi' ukhra yajibu tadmeeruha (), or "other sites which must be destroyed." We are listed as a "Jewish site that abuses Islam" (). Foreskin be damned, the pious have turned on their Yahoodi decoder rings and exposed us yet again.

Other methods of attack have been attempts at flooding our guestbook and mailbox. Such tactics are amateurish, and often draw a giggle from the Hinjews... er, I mean Atheists... here at the FTMecca. Unfortunately others, such as the Dallas Morning News, have not faced so mild an attack.

Rather than attack the Dallas Morning News on its reporting of the topic that most raised the ire of the people behind InfoCom, the company and other Islamic groups waited for any story remotely related to Islam or Muslims that they could twist as the undoubted seed of a hate crime. Whenever a chance to proclaim the paper "Islamophobic" presented itself, the Mu'mineen went on the attack. On May 18th, 2000, the Dallas Observer published an article titled "War of Words," where the author, Mark Donald, chronicled a few such incidents as follows:

Two days after the McGonigle article, the Morning News compounded its problems when it wrote an editorial employing the phrase "useful idiots," a term Lenin had coined when referring to those who gave blindly to Communist causes without realizing who they were financing. By applying it broadly to those in the Muslim community who gave to the HLF, the newspaper stoked Muslim outrage. [...] When the paper ran a photo of the Saudi terrorist Osama bin Ladin standing in front of a mosque, a contingent from the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR-Southwest) met with editors to express their outrage. [...] When the imam of the Arlington mosque was identified as the religious advisor to a man who had links to bin Ladin, the Muslim community was upset by the mere mention of his status as a cleric. [...] In late February, after four more McGonigle articles reported continuing accusations of HLF's terrorist ties, many within the Muslim community felt so wronged by Morning News coverage that they again took to the streets. Muslims Against Defamation was organized to formulate a broader-based community response to the problem, says John Janney, who became part of its "team." But Janney was also a member of CAIR, and the head of CAIR was Khalid Hamideh, HLF's attorney. InfoCom allowed Janney, its employee, to create a protest Web site, dallasNOTnews.com, that mocked the News' own Web site. Oddly, in his original 1996 HLF article, McGonigle reported that the wife of Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook had invested $250,000 in InfoCom, which was run by her cousin, Bayan El-Ashi, whose brother was the HLF treasurer and InfoCom's international marketing director. Connections such as these may just be coincidental, but they are the kinds of facts reporters are loath to dismiss and Muslims are quick to loathe.

American Muslims view yesterday's action as just one of a long list of attempts by the pro-Israel lobby to intimidate and silence all those who wish to see Palestinian Muslims and Christians free themselves of a brutal Apartheid-like occupation. We believe the genesis of this raid lies not in Washington, but in Tel Aviv.

Last year, while the same FBI team was investigating the Holy Land Foundation, a tornado soared down from the sky and destroyed the offices of the FBI housing the investigators. All their records were blown onto the street. There were many photos of the event. Other nearby buildings suffered only minor damage. Let us give thanks to Allah (S.W.T.) for what He has already done to the FBI and now let us make vigorous du'a to Allah (S.W.T.) that He will again strike these vermin and their zionazi masters, this time taking them down for the count.